Solicitors’ Office reduces business rates liabilities with RVA Surveyors
Case study:
Solicitors | Walsall, West Midlands
A well-regarded solicitors with offices in the West Midlands who reviewed their business rates through RVA Surveyors.
KEY
FACTS
£15,132
SAVINGS
Office
PROPERTY TYPE
The Client
With offices near central Birmingham and Walsall, our client is a well-regarded solicitors who specialise in civil litigation, family law, immigration and more. They asked RVA Surveyors to assist with the review of their Walsall property which they officially occupied from September 2020.
The client’s business rates for the Walsall property was valued to include four floors: basement, ground floor, first and second floors. However, they only occupied the basement and part of the ground floor, with all other areas converted into residential properties. This meant that our client was paying rates not only for areas that they didn’t occupy, but for areas that were not in commercial use.
The Problem
During the time in which our client came to RVA Surveyors to review their business rates, it was possible to backdate savings not just for the current ratings list, but to also include the 2017 list as well.
A Check was submitted to the Valuation Office Agency (VOA) which if successful would lead to a reduction from £23,000 to £10,750. And though the Check was accepted, only that for 2023 onwards was amended, while the previous list only received a £500 reduction meaning our client wouldn’t receive their savings in full.
For both ratings lists, an assessment to remove survey lines for the first and second floor and part of the ground floor should have been updated. Yet for the 2017 ratings list these assessment changes were not applied due to the VOA not making these adjustments until after the threshold date, meaning that RVA Surveyors could no longer re-submit a Check.
The Solution
To ensure that our client received the correct reductions for both 2017 and 2023 ratings lists, our expert surveyor contacted the VOA to resolve the issue, in which they returned to say that only a Challenge could now be accepted.
To guarantee that this Challenge case was successful, our surveyor resubmitted the documents that were initially for the Check including the lease, floor plans for the revised commercial areas, and rental documents dating back to September 2020. This submission also included a letter of contention discussing in detail the reasons for the Challenge and why this needed to be rectified for our clients.
The Outcome
With the resubmission of evidence and letter on contention, this led the VOA to review the original check for the 2017 ratings list, successfully ending with the Challenge being accepted. This meant our client could receive their savings in full, resulting in £15,132 for the reductions of both 2017 and 2023 ratings lists.
Now with both ratings list’s correctly adjusted, the acceptance of the Challenge has reduced our clients’ outgoings, while also creating an accurate valuation that ensures their past, current, and future liabilities truly reflect the commercial space used with the property.
